Misery and Morsmorde
by MuggleFckr
Summary: This is a different take on the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Basically, the Death Eaters won the Battle of Hogwarts and is from different characters' point of view. Throughout the story, you shall understand the new Wizarding World.
1. Nineteen Years Later

NINETEEN YEARS LATER

A tired-looking redheaded man sat at the end of a long bar in a dodgy pub located in an even dodgier part of London. He had to be in his mid to late thirties and there was a look of quiet desperation on his face as he picked up his sixth glass of Firewhiskey. In the blink of an eye the glass was empty. Fitting, since the glass tended to be 'half-empty' these days. The man sighed as he slammed the glass down, a grimace on his face. They didn't call it Firewhiskey merely because it had a nice ring to it.

"Would you like another?" a soft voice asked him. Hannah Abbott-Longbottom, the landlady, appeared from the shadows. So much had changed.

"Not sure, Hannah," the redhead responded, wondering why she always seemed so happy to be alive; he remembered that she had been a Hufflepuff when they attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Ron Weasley's gaze concentrated on the bartender as he thought about Hogwarts. Nineteen years ago he would have never thought that he would be in the situation he was... It was almost a sure thing that the Order of the Phoenix and their allies would have defeated Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Harry Potter, his best friend, was the Boy Who Lived. It turned out that the Boy Who Lived failed to live up to his title. When the clattering of a wand against the stone floor of the Great Hall was heard, everything changed. The Wizarding World died along with Harry Potter on that fateful day.

"I need another one," Ron said, blinking himself out of the trance-like state that he had been in. "At least I'm keeping you in business, eh?"

Hannah gave him a pitying smile and went to get Ron a fresh glass of his favourite drink. She truly did pity him and his situation. He had the love of his life, Hermione Granger, ripped from his arms in the middle of Diagon Alley; this happened soon after the Battle of Hogwarts.

"Here you are, Ron."

"Thank you..."

As if he knew what Hannah had been thinking about, his thoughts immediately went to Hermione. Was she even still alive? The Death Eaters had achieved their mission of purging the Wizarding World of Muggleborn witches and wizards to encampments where the victims were either tortured, maimed, or murdered. To put it simply, if you were found out to not be of Pureblood or Half-Blood Wizarding decent, you had no chance of surviving. As much as Ron would like to count his blessings to be a Pureblood, not to mention alive, he was finding it hard to see how drinking himself to death was any better.

He blamed himself for Hermione's fate. If he had not felt the daft and untimely urge to check in on his older brother George without a disguise such as the Polyjuice Potion, she would still be with him. George had lost much more than an ear during the war: his best friend and his twin, Fred Weasley, had been murdered during the Battle of Hogwarts. Hermione had tried to warn Ron against the stupidity of leaving their hideout to comfort his brother but he was too blinded by grief to listen.

Lifting his glass, Ron swirled the brownish-red liquid in way Severus Snape, his Potions Master from Hogwarts, had taught him. He studied the motion for a moment before he drank his poison.

"Sometimes I think that with each additional drink, there's more of a chance of them coming back," he said to no one.

The door leading out to Charing Cross Road opened and a stocky man entered, heading directly for Hannah.

"Neville!" the landlady exclaimed happily, nearly jumping over the bar to embrace her husband.

Ron looked up from his drink, observing the couple. He gave Neville a nod.

"I forgot to grab my things," Neville said, his cheeks nearly as red as radishes. He had the worst memory. "I can't very well teach without my things."

Hannah giggled and pulled a briefcase out from behind the bar. She had been married to Neville Longbottm long enough to know that she had to remember things for him.

"I can't believe you're teaching there," Ron said to Neville. His voice carried across the empty pub.

"Ron," Neville said breathlessly as he made his way over to his old friend.

"The place is overrun with Death Eaters," Ron continued after he took another swig of his drink. "And that wicked Umbridge is in charge of the bleedin' place. I just can't believe you teach there."

"Someone needs to protect the students," Neville solemnly admitted, running a hand through his thinning hair. "Hardly any of the professors that taught us are there."

"I know."

Neville gazed at Ron, pitying him. He knew how much his friend had lost and he wished he could help him more than giving him a frequent drinker's discount.

"I have to go," he said, patting Ron on the back. "Come and visit?"

"Right," Ron said in a tone that was almost as dry as his glass.

Neville gave his wife a hug and kiss before he left the Leaky Cauldron.

Ron stared at his empty glass and thought about Hogwarts. As soon as the war had ended and Severus Snape, the former headmaster, was killed, Voldemort had put Dolores Umbridge in charge of Hogwarts. In Ron's fifth year, she had been a tyrannical Ministry of Magic plant who hated children and only cared about pursuing her own interests. When her placement as headmistress was announced, it was apparent that there was no safe place to hide. No one was safe from the Death Eaters.

After his victory, the Dark Lord ordered all Muggleborns to be rounded up. When Ron and Hermione found out, they were as cautious as ever and even took shelter in Germany most of the time. Hermione had been to Hamburg with her family in her youth and decided that the further away from London they were, the better. For a while, the two of them lived an illusion of happiness. It worked until Ron received a letter from George stating that he was going to close his shop in Diagon Alley. The couple exchanged some words, Ron remembered that he had felt panic and anger, and Disapparated to his brother's shop. Unfortunately, Hermione followed him.

As she was ripped out of Ron's arms merely minutes after they met up, Ron remembered screaming and trying to fight off the Death Eaters that had surrounded them. Hermione, always the one with quick reflexes, was outmatched by the villains. Ron remembered that one of them was a woman, perhaps Bellatrix Lestrange, who laughed manically as she swore at Hermione and snapped her wand in half. For a witch or wizard, this was like losing a limb. Hermione sobbed as they dragged her down a dark alleyway and the Death Eater who had grabbed ahold of Ron forced him to watch the others abuse her. There were many screams from the two of them before the Death Eaters Disapparated, taking Hermione with them. Hermione's screams haunted Ron every night.

Ron lifted up a cigarette and put it between his lips.

"Do you mind?" he asked Hannah.

"No one's even in here to care," she replied with a shrug.

The comforting smell of sulfur surrounded Ron as he lit his cigarette with a match. Since Hermione had gone, he had decided to pick up using Muggle items as some sort of respect for his lost love. It was like some sort of drawn out memorial service. He inhaled a breath of smoke and looked at his empty glass, sighing. He wondered how hard it would be to 'Avada Kedavra' one's self.

The door to the road opened again.

"I knew you would be here," an airy voice said from the doorway.

A woman stood there with her dirty blond hair that was straggly and formed into a pixie-like cut. She came closer to the redheaded man as she unbuttoned her bright yellow coat. The colour of the coat was in sick dichotomy with the atmosphere of the bar and the other people inhabiting it.

"Luna."

"Ron."

She sat down, folding the coat on her lap. Instead of striking up a conversation with her old friend, she merely stared into his eyes.

"I'm going to need another drink, Hannah," Ron deadpanned as he broke eye contact and held his head in his hands.

"That will kill you," Luna said mystically as the bartender refilled Ron's glass.

"Your point is?"

Luna hesitated before she asked Ron if he had read the Daily Prophet that day.

"Of course not, Lovegood. I want nothing to do with those bastards. It's all self-righteous propaganda on their end and I don't have an appetite for it."

"Hermione's dead. She died a long time ago... They did a writeup of the deceased today," Luna said in barely a whisper. She looked down at her lap. "I thought you should know. If magic can't bring her back, drinking can't."

Ron had been in the process of drinking when his glass fell to the floor, shattering. His heart, already broken, fractured into more pieces than the glass had. He looked down at the mess he had made and then over at Luna who was silently crying. Silently he sat there with no expression on his face. About five minutes of silence, he dug his hand into his pocket, quietly sat five Galleons on the bar, and stood up.

"Ron-" Hannah and Luna started before the man Disapparated.

He reappeared on the main street of Hogsmede Village that lead up to Hogwarts. It was dead silent as he walked down the road.

"I did nothing for you," he spoke, looking at the ground as he walked. "I failed you and I was weak. You suffered for years... Years that I thought you had died. I always had the hope that you would one day reappear. It was childish. You didn't deserve this, Hermione. You didn't deserve me. I don't deserve to be alive. For eighteen years your screams have haunted me."

Ron looked up at the shadow of Hogwarts that loomed ahead of him. It was impossible to think that it used to have a welcoming glow about it. His hand went to his pocket and he extracted his wand, studying it. He was nearing Hogwarts' gates.

"This is where we met and fell in love. This is where he died and both of us with him. Is there any better place to be?" he said to an imaginary Hermione. "This is where we were positive that we would have had a future together, the three of us. I know I've had a lot to drink, but I feel like it's the only way we can talk anymore."

Stepping up to the gates, he grabbed ahold of one the bars, peering through. The grounds of Hogwarts were vast and dark. He twirled his wand playfully between his fingers as he looked up at the castle.

"Hermione," he breathed, his grip loosening on the gate. "You'll think this selfish of me."

Suddenly, his wand stopped twirling. He slowly raised it so that it pointed at his own heart. Eyes still focused on Hogwarts, he stood there in the dark.

"Avada Kedavra."


	2. The Road to Hogwarts

A few hours later, Ginny Weasley found herself walking outside of the Hog's Head pub in Hogsmeade. Luna Lovegood had alerted her that her brother Ron had left the Leaky Cauldron in an odd state. She was hoping to find him at another pub that he frequented but the owner said that he had not had any business that day. Worried, she wandered up the narrow and curving path towards Hogwarts. Two decades ago she used to make her way in the opposite direction, cheerful that she had the day off to wander around Hogsmeade and down a few Butterbeers with her friends. Now they were all gone and Butterbeer tasted inappropriately cheerful in light of all that had happened.

She stopped and was surprised to find herself in front of Honeydukes, the old sweet and joke shop that the Hogwarts students would frequent. The windows were caked with dust and grime and the sign was missing a few letters so that it spelt out "one ukes". Sadly, she caressed the window, longing for the old times. The shop had long since been abandoned. It was a metaphor for her heart after Harry Potter, her love, had died.

Looking up, she saw the silhouette of Hogwarts in the distance and remembered that it had been years since she had seen it. Despite everything, she still had fond memories of the place. She moved closer to the castle as her mind wandered to Harry. Guilt consumed her with every step she took. This was Harry's death place and she, his true love, had never come to visit. Whenever she had the urge to visit his resting place in Godric's Hallow, the pain of thousands of knives tore through her heart. Perhaps it would be easier to take one step at a time and see where it all ended once more.

As she neared the gates of Hogwarts, an eerie wind stopped her. It could have been in her mind, she thought to herself, since the trees were as still as the hundreds of corpses left after the Battle of Hogwarts. Something about the atmosphere was off, perhaps it was Umbridge, so she pulled out her wand and pointed it ahead of her.

"Lumos," she said as the tip of her wand slayed the darkness in front of her.

She spun around, a circle of light illuminating the landscape. Suddenly, she noticed a flash of orange and she focused her wand upon it.

"Ro-" A roar of thunder cut her off. "Merlin, Ron!"

Rushing to the still form of her brother, Ginny knelt down and set her wand on the ground, bowing over him.

"Ron!" she shouted, shaking him all but to receive no response. It could not be.

She quickly grabbed her wand up from the ground and tugged the wand from Ron's hand. She could smell the liquor and hoped to Merlin that he was merely passed out in one of his dead-like states. Pointing her wand at his, she muttered an incantation that would reveal the last spell performed with the wand. To her horror, it revealed the Killing Curse.

"RON!" Ginny screamed, dropping both wands in horror as she shook her brother violently. "You CAN'T be dead! NO! WAKE UP!"

Ron's eyes were still open and the rain ran down his pale face like tears. She looked down at him, cradling him like the baby she never had. Since Hermione and Harry had gone, she had taken to watching over her older brother like a mother. They had promised to take care of one another. Tonight, Ron had broken that promise.

"I can't accept this!" she shouted at the corpse, letting go of it with disgust. "I refuse to believe it!"

Ginny stood up and looked down at him. Tears were streaming down her face as she threw herself at the gates, shaking them with an extraordinary amount of energy.

"HELP!" she shouted to the darkness. "I NEED HELP! SOMEONE'S DEAD!"

She shook the gates for what seemed like hours with not a single response. A flash of lightning lit up Ron's face, illuminating the fact that he was most certainly dead. Her rage transformed into panic as she saw his face once more. Quickly, she picked up her wand and ran as fast as she could to the Hog's Head.

"He's dead!" she yelped from the doorway.

The bartender dropped the glass that he was buffing for the fifth time that day and leapt over the bar.

"Who is dead?" the bartender asked, a look of horror on his face. "You-Know-Who?"

"Ron!"

"Thought his name was Tom..." the bartender said stupidly, scratching his head.

"Fuck you, Higgs! My brother!" Ginny growled, nearly taking down the bartender. She remembered that he had been a Slytherin before her time at Hogwarts.

"Merlin's beard," he hissed, grabbing Ginny in an attempt to calm her down. "I'm going to help you but I can't if you kill me."

Ginny suddenly stopped and broke down in the empty pub, sobbing into the shoulder of Terence Higgs the bartender. Ron's death, to her, was the nail in her own coffin. She had nothing more to live for- it was as if Ron's suicide was a reminder from Death himself that her's was right around the corner.

"Come on," he said quietly as he pulled her away. "Will you let me help you?"

Ginny nodded quietly before she made her way out of the pub, still crying loudly. It seemed like a lifetime before her and the bartender made it back to Ron's body. His clothes were now caked in mud and the rain continued to make it appear that he was mourning. She could not help but kneel next to him again. Rocking him in her arms, she continued to sob as she sang an old song their father used to sing to them as children (he had heard it on the Muggle radio in his youth) to help them fall asleep:

"Once there was a way to get back homeward

Once there was a way to get back home

Sleep pretty darling do not cry

And I will sing a lullaby

Golden slumbers fill your eyes

Smiles awake you when you rise

Sleep pretty darling do not cry

And I will sing a lullaby

Once there was a way to get back homeward

Once there was a way to get back home

Sleep pretty darling do not cry

And I will sing a lullaby"

"Do you remember that song?" Ginny asked her brother. "I remember father singing it to us when we were children. He said it was by the 'Beetles' or something like that... I remember not understanding how insects could sing and he laughed. Mum was so irritated with him for constantly listening to the Muggle radio..." She laughed and wiped away some of her tears. "I also remember the time you got into trouble for trying to become friends with the gnomes in our garden instead of getting rid of them... You thought it was mean and that their bites were their way of giving you hugs since their arms were so small. You were so stupid."

Terence Higgs stood behind her in silence. He was too afraid to ask her to get on with it.

Ginny let out a sob which was closely followed by a giggle. "And then there was that one time Fred and George transformed your stuffed bear into a spider. That's why you hated spiders so much... The way they move creeped you out and you wouldn't talk to them for months. Your naiveté was what made you so charming, you know that? After we lost, well... We all changed. I'm sorry. This isn't how it should have ended." She gasped, falling into another fit of sobs.

"Do you think we should, you know, get rid of the body?" Terence asked delicately.

Ginny looked up at him with a look of murder on her face despite her tears. Her look made Terence run away out of fear for his life.

"I don't really believe in heaven," she whispered to Ron, continuing to rock him back and forth. "But I do know that you're with them right now..." She sobbed. "C-Can you tell Harry 'hello' for me? I'm so sorry I never went to visit him... I meant to but it hurt too much. This hurts too much... At least you can see Hermione again, you selfish bastard. You're so stupid."

She stood up and propped his body up against a nearby tree. How was she going to tell the remaining members of her family? Her parents were long dead and the Burrow had been repossessed by the Ministry and turned into some sort of torture facility for Muggleborn victims. She looked back up at Hogwarts and then back to Ron as she decided that she was going to find the place where Hermione was buried, even if it killed her.

It was months before she heard from her brother Percy. He was still working at the Ministry of Magic and was able to locate the plot where Hermione was put to rest nearly seventeen years ago. Ginny had decided to have Ron's body cremated in order to keep her promise to lay him to rest with Hermione.

The plan was to get the family together at the spot for the burial. It was only a few miles away from one of the Muggleborn death camps and the sight of all of them together would be dangerous. There was the risk of capture, identification, and death but each of them, even Percy the pessimist, found it worth it. It would get done quickly and they would leave as soon as logic saw it fit.

The burial was quick and not much was said. Everyone was numb, yet they felt relief in lying their youngest brother to rest with the one who drove him to his death.

George, Percy, Ginny, and Bill silently left their thoughts with Ron's grave.

"It's scary to think that such a pretty spot is so close to a land of death and destruction," Ginny whispered to George as they made their way away from the freshly dug grave.

Several black figures appeared in front of the four Weasleys.

"Look who we have here," a hoarse voice croaked out of a hooded figure.

"I don't think we need to look 'em up," another figure said. "They're obvious filth."

Ginny's body became numb with terror as the four hooded figures surrounded her and her brothers. There was no escape.

"Come to mourn the foul?" a woman's high voice asked as she pulled back her hood. Her rotten teeth were revolting. "It's too bad all of you ginger freaks love Muggles so much."

Upon her order, each of the Death Eaters took hold of a Weasley. There was a time, long ago, that they would have fought back. Now, however, it seemed that they welcomed their fates.

Ginny turned to take a last glance at Ron's grave as the Death Eaters marched them towards the camp.

"All is well."


End file.
